all is not well

                                   I have been wondering

              What you are thinking about, and by now suppose

                                   It is certainly not me.

              But the crocus is up, and the lark, and the blundering

                                   Blood knows what it knows.

It talks to itself all night, like a sliding moonlit sea.

                                   Of course, it is talking of you.

              At dawn, where the ocean has netted its catch of lights,

                                   The sun plants one lithe foot

              On that spill of mirrors, but the blood goes worming

                    through

                                   Its warm Arabian nights,

Naming your pounding name again in the dark heart-root.

                                   Who shall, of course, be nameless.

              Anyway, I should want you to know I have done my

                    best,

                                   As I'm sure you have, too.

              Others are bound to us, the gentle and blameless

                                   Whose names are not confessed

In the ceaseless palaver. My dearest, the clear unquarried blue

                                   Of those depths is all but blinding.

              You may remember that once you brought my boys

                                   Two little woolly birds.

              Yesterday the older one asked for you upon finding

                                   Your thrush among his toys.

And the tides welled about me, and I could find no words.

                                   There is not much else to tell.

              One tries one's best to continue as before,

                                   Doing some little good.

              But I would have you know that all is not well

                                   With a man dead set to ignore

The endless repetitions of his own murmurous blood.

Anthony Hecht, "A Letter"